TREND SETTER

By Rajesh Ghadge

RUNNING GOA'S FIRST DRIVING SCHOOL FOR WOMEN

“Hailing from

Gujarat, Yashika

Sawant did her secondary education in Kolhapur Maharashtra and Hotel Management from Nanavati Institute at Ahmadabad before relocating to Goa. Yashika is a single mom who runs Goa's first ladies' special

driving school. ”

Yashika has done her training under the famous Sanjeev Kapoor and has learned culinary skills from him. She had a dream of entering the hospitality industry but destiny had something else stored for her and that led her to become the first female owner of the driving school for Women. When Yashika first decided to venture into the F&B Industry, her father-in-law advised her against venturing into the restaurant business. “I was a single mom and my father-inlaw was not in favour of me getting into the restaurant business as it would have been difficult to manage with a two-year-old kid and also the restaurant business runs till late night and it is usually considered mainly a domain of men rather than women,” said Yashika . She reveals that it was then t h a t h e r m o t h e r i n l a w suggested that she open a driving school. There is a very interesting story behind this. “There was only one driving school in our area where I went for my driving license and I saw women there asking for a lady instructor to teach them driving but they had no such option available with them, ” she adds that this incident made her think about w h a t h a p p e n s t o t h e s e women. Will they give up a chance of learning to drive because of the lack of lady drivers? “This became the turning point for me and I decided to start Goa's First L a d i e s S p e c i a l D r i v i n g School.”, she says. According to Yashika, every woman has a right to learn to d r i v e a n d b e c o m e s e l f sufficient for commuting but the reluctance of husband or f a m i l y d u e t o t h e n o n availability of a lady instructor makes this difficult and many of them give up the dream of driving altogether. “I want to help all those ladies who are unable to learn to drive due to this lack of female instructors. . When I first came down to Goa I saw there is a lack of public transport here and having your own 2 or 4w h e e l e r b e c o m e s y o u r lifesaver, ” she said, adding that we end up spending more m o n e y o n t h e p r i v a t e transport operators and not getting the desired result. “I decided to teach both 2 and 4-wheelers to the ladies and the rest is history.” she says proudly. Yashika started her ladies' special driving school but the road to success is never easy. She had to face many hurdles. “There were a lot of setbacks and hurdles, knowing to drive and teaching it to others are two different things. Handling the things at RTO and other government offices was the most difficult job but here my father-in-Law came to my rescue and helped me with many things, ” said Yashika adding that you need to jump i n t h e w a t e r t o l e a r n swimming. “I might have failed as a woman but the mother inside me did now allow me to give up. I realised that if I failed here I won't be able to g i v e a g o o d l i f e t o m y daughter, and according to me she deserved the best. I never wanted to become a failure, never wanted to break down and I wanted to come out of all the adversity and show my daughter to never give up regardless of the fact if you have support or not.” Yashika had faced all the c h a l l e n g e s w i t h o u t a n y hesitation. “I would get scared even when there is a minor accident but now I know how to handle the situation,” she said adding that when she started the driving school, she received a very good response from the ladies. “Even men started approaching the school and I then appointed one male instructor for them.” As business started getting s e l f s u s t a i n a b l e Ya s h i k a decided to venture into the other sectors. “I love travelling and while doing that I wanted to make sure that I get paid for

the same and to do that I started a travel agency. Again this travel agency is special and we take ladies on a tour,” said Yashika adding that the idea of starting a travel agency came to her when one of her relatives from kolhapur asked her to take up the franchise of his travel agency in Goa. “Since my travel agency is a ladies special, I take only ladies on the trips, it a l s o m a k e s t h e m f e e l comfortable. I have done trips in India and abroad as well but only with women.” According to Yashika, she makes sure that she provides a complete fun experience to the ladies on the trips. “I make sure that everyone enjoys and makes best use of their time and money. There are single moms like me, there are ladies whose husbands don 't have time to go out on tour with them and then there are ladies who have retired and they have lost their husband and now they want to travel, see new places. All these women become part of my ladies special trips, ” said Yashika adding, once the booking goes above 15, she plans the trip. Yashika is a real hustler and enterprising person and she sees the business opportunity in everything. “I started g a i n i n g w e i g h t w i t h o u t realising this is happening due to my excessive stress level. I had no idea how to control it and the day came when I was not more able to don my favourite dresses I realised it is high time to do something about it,” said Yashika adding, that she came across a concept of Slim India started by Indian dietician living in Chicago wherein you can lose weight while eating whatever y o u w a n t , ” s a i d Ya s h i k a adding that she lost 10 kg weight with the help of Slim India products. “It did not stop with just losing weight, I wanted to start the business and I did and now I am happy that i can use the 10 year old dresses and at the same time h e l p i n g o t h e r l a d i e s t o a c h i e v e t h e i r d r e a m o f slimming down.” Yashika has achieved the dream of entering into the b u s i n e s s a n d r u n n i n g i t successfully but the real satisfaction comes from the feedback of the customers a n d Ya s h i k a f e e l v e r y fortunate to have the positive f e e d b a c k f r o m a l l h e r customers. “When a lady comes to me saying that she w o u l d n o t h a v e g o t a n opportunity to drive a car if it was not for me that makes me feel proud. I have brought the smile on the faces of many ladies and fulfilled their dreams and that is my main earning compared to the profits I made from the business,” said Yashika. A lady running a successful business in the man's world is really a challenging. For Yashika being the only lady running a driving school in the domain of 128 driving schools run by men, was challenging. The major challenge she faced when she got selected as a coordinator of All India Driving School Association from Goa. “It was tough; they were hesitant to follow the instructions from me just because I am woman. But I did not give up, I organised the meetings and set the new trend in the association and f r o m t h a t m o m e n t o n I stopped getting negative r e m a r k s f r o m m y m a l e counterparts,” she said. In fact e v e r y o n e a p p r e c i a t e d ' s initiative thanking her for taking such a step. “Now on 22nd May I will be attending a conclave of 35 thousand driving schools from across the country in Gujarat as a coordinator from Goa.” Yashika has many plans for the betterment of women that she wants to implement in the near future but the immediate plan she has is to start a Youtube channel. “I want to work for the ladies who are suffering from adversities of life just like me, I want to help them, encourage them by sharing my experience with them and that will become possible when I will be able to communicate with each of them and the best medium for this is the Youtube channel,” said Yashika adding she want to motivate the ladies through this channel. She wants to tell every lady out there to never give the remote control of your success or failure in the hands of others. “You should take responsibility for your success and failure too. I want tell every lady out there to make y o u r s e l f s o s t r o n g a n d capable that you don't need the support of anyone to achieve your dreams.”